


Empty Nest

by noplacespecial



Category: Big Love
Genre: Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:11:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noplacespecial/pseuds/noplacespecial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wonders if this is all worth it anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Nest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dranoa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dranoa/gifts).



> I couldn't find any details in your signup or your LJ, so hopefully this is along the lines of what you were looking for - takes place directly after the S4 finale. Really hope you enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

The limo that Bill hires, ostensibly as a mere escape route, reminds Barb of the fancy valet services her mother used to employ during her childhood. It's far larger than necessary to fit four people, with plush leather seats, soft carpeting, and a minibar. She remembers caressing similar soft seats as a girl, on the way to a family vacation. Her mother, despite the church's values of modesty and humility, never had a problem embracing the finer things in life. When she was young, she took such luxuries for granted. Having lived so long without them, she can't help but be suspicious now as an adult, and the sprawling vehicle seems far more suited to take a group of teenagers to their prom than it does carting the polygamist family of the newly-elected Senator back home to their separate-yet-equal homes.

The driver turns on the radio, and Barb is glad; she has no desire to talk, to discuss either the present or the future because she has no idea what she would say. Her world is falling apart around her, yet again, and it takes all of her strength and concentration simply to sit, breathe, exist.

In a way, the feeling of her life's foundation slowly crumbling beneath her feet is a familiar one, almost oddly comforting. She felt it first when a routine physical exam after Teeny's birth led to a diagnosis of cancer. She felt it again soon after, when Bill turned to polygamy and invited Nicki into their lives, their family, their marriage. Again when Margie went from babysitter to wife, when she was excommunicated from the church, when her children began having intercourse outside of marriage, her strong handsome son developing feelings for a woman meant to be his mother figure and and her beautiful baby girl getting married far too young. It seems like her life is getting constantly turned upside-down by this life that she never chose but has accepted, time and time again, no matter how far she feels from herself.

She remembers the old days, just her and Bill against the world. Watching him now, seated at the front of the car near the partition separating them from their chauffeur, he's beaming; lost in his own personal victory, and despite everything she can't help but feel a stab of attraction, that old pull from their college days that led her to promise herself to him in the first place. It's the look of triumph, of certainty - the earnest young Bill Henrickson that wanted to attend seminary and divert the world back to the path of God.

She wonders if he still feels like that Bill Henrickson. He's always had a good poker face; even when he pours his heart out to her, she wonders how much he's still hiding inside. He's spent the last few years claiming to follow the word of God, but she wonders if he still fully believes that he's doing His will rather than his own. As each year passes, and he continues to convince himself that mere coincidences are signs from on high, stepping further and further from the path that they agreed to go down together, she has to question whether this is all worth it anymore - whether Bill is still the man she married.

She knows in her heart that he's not; but then again she's not the same woman she was back then either. That Barb Dutton, fresh-faced and steely-eyed, is drowning beneath Bill's delusions of grandeur. For all his hatred of Juniper Creek, all his denouncing of its leaders and its prophets, she fears he's become just that - another of the men who blindly follow anything they can convince themselves is God's will rather than having to blaze a path all on their own, twisting a purpose-driven life into their own personal justification for doing whatever they want.

Nicki sits next to Bill in the limo, clutching his hand tightly, eyes sparkling with the same fervor that has seized their husband. While Barb feels that this life has changed her for the better, Nicki only has seemed to flourish. She is not the woman that she was when she entered their growing family, either - no longer hesitant or cold. Though she's always had an abrasive personality, Nicki and Barb clicked from the beginning. When Homes Plus was barely turning a profit and Bill was always at the store desperately trying to make ends meet, Nicki was the one to care for her when she was weak and nauseated from the chemo, holding her hand and stroking her brow and showing the tender side that she's so desperate to hide from the rest of the world. That Nicki Grant was uncomfortable in her own skin, terrified of the world outside of the compound.

Barb hardly recognizes her anymore; no more long, frumpy prairie dresses. No more braid. And as of yesterday, no more long hair. This Nicki Grant sits tall and proud next to the man who is taking her from the seclusion of Juniper Creek to complete visibility; the same thing that shakes Barb down to her very core is what Nicki has been dreaming of her entire life.

Marg, all the way in the far back corner, is shrunken into her seat clutching her knees in a death grip, face as white as her knuckles. If there's one of them that's made the biggest change since coming into this family, it's undoubtedly little Margie the babysitter. Margene Heffman is a poised, confident businesswoman with a heart bigger than Barb ever thought possible. Marg loves Bill unquestionably, yet still has room in her heart for Ana and Goran, had enough to give her body to be a surrogate for Pam. She has carved out a niche for herself in the business world, yet risked it all to stand by her husband tonight. It's a spirit of optimism and generosity that Barb herself envies.

In the middle of the limo, she sits staring straight ahead out the window, watching the streets winding by until they pull into their familiar neighborhood. Bill hasn't met her eyes once since they left, and he doesn't start now. He and Nicki climb out first, Margene follows, and Barb brings up the rear. The words have left her mouth now, the damage done: she wants out. For now, it's just Bill she has to contend with, but she knows that her sister-wives will never understand, and she dreads their reaction. But the truth is that there's nothing left for her here anymore. Nicki wants Bill all to herself, Margene has two marriages to contend with now, and Bill is too consumed with his path and The Principle to see the forest for the trees.

The house is silent when she enters, climbs the stairs, and goes about her nightly routine. Bill is with Marg tonight, Sarah is long gone, and Bill and Teeny are both out with friends. It feels quiet and ominous in a way that she can never quite remember it being. She can hear the faucet dripping, tree branches tapping at the window. Barb climbs into the bed and prays for sleep to come.

Plural marriage was supposed to bring them closer together, to turn their small happy family into an even larger and more joyous one. Yet as Barb lies motionless in the dark, she can't ever remember feeling so alone.


End file.
